Thompson on the impact of Talga’s graphite and graphene results on their lithium-ion battery program

Mark Thompson, Managing Director of Talga Resources Ltd. (ASX: TLG) in an interview with InvestorIntel Corp. CEO Tracy Weslosky discuss Talga’s “ultimate goal of becoming a global scale producer of graphite and graphene” and how their recently announced positive results will boost Talga’s lithium ion battery program. They also explore how Talga is targeting the $11 billion plus corrosion protection sector, and the numerous competitive advantages therein. With an update on the Phase 2 graphene pilot test plant and the high quality graphene output that has been confirmed, Tracy asks Mark for his insight on the overall global graphite and graphene market and how the electric vehicle market will drive demand.

Tracy Weslosky: Mark the reason why I’m so excited about talking to you is, and I don’t say this very often to the InvestorIntel audience, but I do believe we have one of the most undervalued stocks currently on the market. We have a lot of questions to talk to you about with both graphite and graphene today. Are you ready?

Mark Thompson: Go for it.

Tracy Weslosky: Okay. First of all I’d like to start by doing something I never do, which is to actually read a quote that I read in your shareholders letter from your Chairman, Keith Coughlan. He wrote in a recently published letter, “The Company has made great strides toward our ultimate goal of becoming a global scale producer of graphite and graphene. As a result we are strategically placed to play a growing role in the emerging trend towards low-emission energy production and storage via devices such as batteries and fuel cells, conductive coatings and a host of technology applications that require advanced materials”. I would love it if you would just start by reintroducing Talga to our audience and understand why that’s not just a visionary statement, but that’s really what Talga is trying and is achieving.

Mark Thompson: Yeah. At the root of that is that the world has a lot of problems. It’s got a lot of resource pressure and a lot of pollution pressure and it’s trying to fix those problems. One of the ways around that is to positively change energy storage and energy mobility and energy generation. Graphite being a crystalline form of carbon is at the heart of a lot of those technologies and we own the world’s highest grade resource of graphite under (inaudible) and NI 43 conditions. We’re taking advantage of that and we’re trying to work out strategically how to use that resource to the betterment of all these sorts of products that people read about in the media, but then don’t enter into their lives for a little while, but similar to plastics and carbon fiber before it some of these companies go on to become global leaders. That’s where Talga is heading.

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Tracy Weslosky: I think something that I would love for you to explain to our audience is how you really differentiate yourself. Your competitive advantage is you’re going after some very unique niches – for instance an $11 billion dollar plus corrosion protection sector….can you talk about these different sectors that you’re targeting please?

Mark Thompson: So we were quite an early mover into the graphite space and what we found is that there’s an industry that’s 40 times bigger than the entire global graphite market and that’s the total volume of material used for paints and coatings. Graphene, one of the largest volume applications with really good margins and really good speed to market in its development is in the coating sector. We’ve got a Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Siva Bohm who has over 25 patents and over 100 technical papers in his 25-year career. He’s a coating specialist. He’s now, as our CTO, basically constructing products made of our graphene to license and look for revenues from royalties and production obviously that feeds into our raw materials. We see the coating as a, I guess, a media darling compared to a roll up TV screens and things like electric planes, but it’s actually a very good solid move because it only involves replacing encumbered materials like zinc and zircon rather than creating entirely new technologies. That’s just one part of the four main sectors we focus on.

Tracy Weslosky: And of course, something that is sizzling to our audience is the battery storage market. Can you tell us what your involvement is in that particular sector?